Posts tagged: breast cancer fundraiser

It was a pleasure to attend this year’s Association of Fundraising Professionals 2012 Vancouver 49th International Conference on Fundraising. Their slogan was “Drive Passion, Drive Fundraising & Drive 2012” and from Apr 1 – 3 that’s what we intended to do. Drive the idea that cookbooks are an excellent fundraising tool for all types of non-profits!

We set up our fundraising cookbook display in the Exhibit Hall, gave away 500 cookbooks and spoke to hundreds of people from a variety of non-profits from all over the world. Many who stopped hadn’t thought of cookbooks as fundraisers before and were very impressed with how much you can customize your cookbook to reflect your organization’s needs.

One attendee, from Lakeland College, wanted to include a history of their college as they are celebrating their one hundred year anniversary. He thought cookbooks were such a great idea he even started selling our cookbooks to other attendees standing at our booth! Thanks Kevin Davies!

Rhonda & Gloria at the booth

We sell the concept – Cookbooks are a very profitable venture – we sell each book to the non-profit for approximately $3.00 – $5.00 while your group re-sells it for $10.00 or more. This means you can make 200 – 300% return on your investment!

We look forward to corresponding with all our new AFP clients and friends. We appreciate your enthusiasm and are here to assist you in making your cookbook a huge success!

For Christina Handley, raising money for cancer related causes has deep personal meaning. It’s her calling. Christina has been struck with the disease on two occasions, once with her own diagnosis, a rare form of cancer that one in a million women experience, and second, with her life long friend, a beautiful Belgian mare she grew up with, named Reba. “I received my diagnosis a year to the day that Reba passed on,” Christina explained from her farm house in Kewartha Lakes, Ontario, a rural community of approximately 150 people. “But I have to say that despite all these challenges this disease brought into my life, the reason I succeeded is because of attitude and support from people.” Christina Handley is happy to report that her cancer has been in remission for over a year and a half.

Support during the ordeal came from her husband Boyd, a man she affectionately calls her “rock”, from friends in her local community, and from friends far away. “One friend took two months off work to drive me to my appointments while another drove all the way from Virginia to be with me. I also felt such love and support when I took in a cancer fundraising relay during my treatment. It was experiences like this that kept me going. I decided to assemble a team of friends shortly afterward for The Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life. We raised $20,000. Our goal was $2500.”

For Handley, exceeding expectations has become a way of life, her most recent experience with her daily journal providing the seed for a fundraising cookbook from Gateway Publishing. “I started to journal my story and then left the book at the treatment centre to share with people. I came back after the weekend, the whole time wondering if I had done the right thing, to find several stories written in it. We’ve taken these stories and placed them anonymously inside our cookbook. Stories of the personal journeys with cancer have made our cookbook that much more special.”

Handley’s cookbook, entitled “Fightin’ Fillies”, includes stories from everyday people undergoing cancer treatments. There are even a few from clinic volunteers, each a nice complement to the book’s wide range of recipes (courtesy of friends and family). Handley chose Gateway to print her cookbook after seeing another Gateway customer, Breasts of Friends on CBC’s Dragon’s Den. “They liked Gateway so I figured I would, and working with them was great. They took me through each step of the process, which ran very smoothly. The books just arrived and they look beautiful.”

Given the book’s beautiful cover and its unique personal stories of people touched by cancer, she’ll have absolutely no problem doing exactly that, and given Gateway’s profitable fundraising cookbook formula, there’ll be plenty available for a good cause.

When Gateway Publishing first got the call from Breast Friends way back in 2004 they had no idea what lay ahead. At the time, Breast Friends was 10 ladies from small town Saskatchewan bound by the goal of producing a cookbook to raise money for breast cancer. Like many Gateway customers, Breast Friends started with a long list of proven recipes and a few stories to illustrate the meaning behind their cause. The first cookbook was a success, which lead shortly afterward to another call from Breast Friends for a second cookbook. The trend continued. A third and fourth cookbook followed, setting the stage for a fifth, recently announced for 2012.

The Breast Friends success story simply kept rolling along as this group of energetic women achieved heights hardly imaginable in 2004. Just last year, Breasts surpassed the $1,000,000 mark in cancer related donations, they made an appearance on CBC’s Dragon’s Den, and they became the subject of a feature story in France’s Gourmond Magazine, an internationally known culinary publication.

Gateway Cookbooks has been there every step of the way, doing everything from assembling cookbook recipes, to managing the design of the book’s cover, to printing the book on one of its state of the art digital printers, to packaging and shipping the cookbooks to Breast Friends’ distribution centre in Foam Lake. “We’re there to help people achieve their dreams,” says Rhonda Pineau, Gateway’s Sales and Marketing Manager. “Breast Friends are doing important things to change lives. Just being part of that makes you feel good about what you’re doing, which makes us work that much harder.”

After building such strong relationships with Breast Friends, the future appeared to be set but in an ironic twist of fate, in November 2009, Pineau was diagnosed breast cancer. Breast Friends called, as they often did, but not to order another cookbook. This time their call was made to offer to pay for a three-day seminar at “Inspire Health”, a Vancouver-based, non-profit cancer treatment centre. Pineau was both grateful and excited about the prospect of a fresh start on her treatment. “The program was life changing. If it weren’t for the friendship we had developed with Breast Friends I’m not sure what would have happened.”

People often talk about building relationships through business, but with Gateway, relationships go beyond the bottom line. According to Gloria Nickel, Production Coordinator at Gateway, “Our customers are often people working toward some type of emotional outcome. Whether it’s breast cancer fundraising like it is with Breast Friends, school fundraising, or other non-profit charity groups, cookbooks represent an emotional stage in people’s lives. The cookbook becomes a symbol for positive change, a place for people to share recipes, memories and wonderful stories about the things that make life special.”

Gateway Publishing Cookbooks is a publisher of cookbooks for fundraising, donor gifts, corporate recognition, weddings, and family memories. Gateway is part of Gateway Group – a family-owned collection of business units specializing in community based publishing and publishing related products. The Group’s three units include Gateway Publishing Cookbooks, Gateway Bookbindery, and Plastikoil– Gateway Bookbinding Systems Ltd.

Breast Friends has donated over $1,000,000 in the aid to fight Breast Cancer. They’ve published 4 editions of their cookbook series with Gateway with a 5th on the way. Over the years they have placed more than 35 orders with us. What we didn’t know for sure back in 2004 was how successful they would become.

They’ve already raised more than a million dollars to support breast cancer research through sales of a best-selling series of cookbooks. And if that’s not enough, the Breast Friends recently managed to slay a group of “dragons” — in their own den!

In early December, on an episode of the CBC television show “Dragons’ Den”, Foam Lake, Saskatchewan’s ten Breast Friends asked the dragons for a $25,000 investment to help them market their cookbooks, which includes the newest addition to the line-up: “Breast Wishes for Christmas”. The five venture capitalists were so impressed with — and moved by — the ladies’ selfless efforts that they offered $50,000 to help the Breast Friends cause.

That successful Canadian TV appearance was recently augmented by publicity in not one, but TWO European magazines. The Breast Friends were featured in the November 2010 issue of Gourmand Magazine, a Spanish publication (dedicated to cookbooks) that is widely distributed in Europe. The group’s success was also covered in the December 2010 issue of Logberg Heimskringla, an Icelandic newspaper serving North America.

A few months from now, Breast Friends will take their inspiring story — and their cookbooks — worldwide when they participate in the 2011 Paris Cookbook Fair, the first international exhibition of fundraising cookbooks, which will feature entrants from 91 countries across the globe.

Factoring in their growing profile, the success of the Dragons’ Den appearance, and the enduring popularity of their coobooks, the Breast Friends have good reason for optimism in the future. In fact, Rhonda Pineau, Sales and Marketing Manager of Gateway Publishing’s cookbooks department notes that the group ordered 20,000 copies of their new book “Breast Wishes for Christmas” last summer and then ordered 20,000 more thanks to the Dragon’s support.

“We’re so happy for the Breast Friends and their continuing success,” says Rhonda. “They are truly an inspiration and we’re very proud to have been able to help them make their dreams into a reality. We wish them all the best and look forward to even greater things in the year ahead!”

The first book, “For The Breasts of Friends”, was produced to help the women deal with the grief of losing friends and family members to breast cancer. Featuring 400+ recipes from the authors, along with breast cancer facts, advice, and heartwarming quotes for women, the book quickly surpassed its modest sales targets and has already raised more than $500,000 to date.

A follow-up cookbook, titled “For the Breasts and the Rest of Friends” was produced in 2006, and it became a national bestseller in just one month. Like its predecessor, the book includes more than 400 recipes along with helpful breast cancer-related information, quotes, and quips intended to both empathize with and inspire those dealing — directly or indirectly — with the illness. The recipes in this edition were donated by family and friends of the authors.

In 2008, the group released a third fundraising cookbook destined for best-selling status — which it achieved based on pre-orders alone. “Breast Wishes from Breast Friends”, was released before Mother’s Day last year and includes recipes gathered from breast cancer survivors. It’s dedicated to women living with and in spite of breast cancer.

Priced at $19.95 each, the cookbooks are an excellent fundraiser because they are both affordable and represent good value. From an initial order of just 2500 copies, the group has re-ordered many times at larger quantities that enable greater discounts and a reduced per-unit cost.

“We’re proud to partner with The Breast Friends and are thrilled for their achievements,” says Rhonda Pineau, Sales and Marketing Manager of Gateway Publishing’s cookbooks department. “They’ve proven that cookbooks can be a recipe for fundraising success!”